I was in London on Saturday to see the penultimate performance of Jerusalem at the Tower Theatre in Stoke Newington.

Written by Jez Butterworth, the multi award-winning play was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 2009 with Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook in the lead roles. It later transferred to the West End and Broadway and has been described as “the greatest British play of the [21st] century”.

The play is a nod to the William Blake poem ‘And did those feet in ancient time’ (later adopted as the lyrics to the hymn ‘Jerusalem’) which invokes a green, peaceful ‘Jerusalem’ in contrast to the ‘dark Satanic mills’ of the Industrial Revolution.

The central character lives in a caravan in the woods where he enjoys a hedonistic lifestyle surrounded by younger acolytes who look up to him, but he is about to be evicted and the story will ultimately lead to violence, so despite some comic interludes it’s quite an intense three hours.

Technically this was an amateur production but it had an excellent cast and the reviews were uniformly good.

The reason I was there was because my daughter was one of the set designers. In the original staging at the Royal Court there were apparently live chickens on stage. At the Tower Theatre there was no evidence of any chickens, alive or dead, but there was a chicken coop and run (above), built by my daughter!

Having finished its run in Stoke Newington, the production now transfers to the Brighton Open-Air Theatre (17-20 June).

Before the matinee performance, which began at 2.00pm, we had lunch at Escocesa, a small restaurant owned by Clare Grogan and her husband, Stephen Lironi.

If the name sounds familiar it’s because Grogan was in Gregory’s Girl. Released in 1981, it’s still one of my favourite films, partly because it reminds me of my own school days in Scotland. She was also the lead singer in the post punk band Altered Images, which Lironi joined the following year, which is how they met. He later became a record producer and, in 2013, a restaurateur.

Together they now own three restaurants in London - Bar Esteban in Crouch End (which combines tapas with fine dining), Escocesa in Stoke Newington and Maresco in Soho, the latter restaurants combining Scottish seafood with Iberian charcuterie and other Spanish inspired dishes.

I liked Escocesa. The food was good, the service was friendly, and it was informal, with lots of bar stools for those who prefer to eat and drink at the bar rather than at tables.

Maresco, which I haven’t been to, is in Berwick Street, just around the corner from the office I shared in Wardour Street almost two decades ago. I was only there for a couple of years but I loved having a desk in Soho. I just can’t believe it’s so long ago.

Stephen Lironi: Right now there’s more rock and roll in kitchens than in recording studios (El País, February 2023)

Jerusalem post

Animal farming